ACC:
@North Carolina 89, Boston College 62
Virginia 63, @Louisville 47 - UVa with a big signature road win, and are still fighting for the 2 line, at least. Pretty damaging for UL if they want a protected seed
@NC State 85, Miami 69 - and speaking of damaging, this will likely cost Miami a seed line (given the heavy competition on the 3 and 4 lines)
@Syracuse 60, Georgia Tech 57 - it's looking like Syracuse is in the bubble talk for the long-term
@Florida St 76, Clemson 65 - see, Clemson, this is the problem. Win at home all you want, but you need something, anything on the road. You don't need a lot, just a couple. Like this game. And you can't get it

SEC:
@South Carolina 78, Alabama 64 - South Carolina is the one team that needed the Big 12 challenge the most, to add a quality win. So naturally, they were left out. D'oh
Mississippi St 76, @Missouri 62

VCU 79, @Davidson 69 - this is a road win that looks good on the resume thanks to the computers, and now VCU is a legitimate at-large threat

Anyway, that's about all the bubble talk I got for ya.

Ohio beat Kent St at home as well, so we might have a new MAC leader on Monday.
Oakland beats Wright St at home, getting them closer to the lead and putting Valpo back in as the projected conference winner for the time being.

And finally, the Ivy League is finally into their Friday/Saturday routine. Yale/Columbia on 3-0, Princeton on 2-0.

MVC:
Evansville 85, @Southern Illinois 78 (OT) - well, UE is a clear #2 in the MVC and SIU is off the board

WCC:
@Gonzaga 84, Santa Clara 67
@BYU 87, Loyola Marymount 62

elsewhere:
Summit: South Dakota St beats Omaha at home. We're now 3-wide with them and IPFW at the top at 6-2
CAA: After another matchday, it's UNC-W and Hofstra on 7-2, JMU, W&M and Towson on 6-3, Charleston on 5-4, and the best team in Northeastern at 4-5. What

Thursday, January 28, 2016

ACC:
Louisville 91, @Virginia Tech 83
@Clemson 73, Pittsburgh 60 - Clemson continues to linger. They still need something on the road to support their resume. It doesn't have to be a lot. Just a little bit. Because the home resume is astounding
Georgia Tech 90, @NC State 83

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Big East:
Xavier 75, @Providence 68 - X might be back on the one line, Provi probably doesn't lose a seed line but does lose a realistic chance at the 1 or 2 line. Needed to validate the Nova win and didn't
@Georgetown 74, Creighton 73 - GU trying to stay alive

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

@Iowa St 85, Kansas 72 - at some point, Kansas needs to be off everyone's 1 line. This isn't like the last couple of years where their SoS was #1 with a bullet. They're borderline 2/3 right now. So is Iowa St, probably a 2 now
@Miami 80, Duke 69 - this is the one loss that doesn't hurt Duke. Except for that Duke is now 4th in the ACC pecking order, which matters when it comes to bracketing these teams together. Big win for Miami
@Ohio St 66, Penn St 46

AQ shenanigans:
Horizon: Wright St is your new leader, having beaten Valpo. Valpo is on the at-large board
MAAC: Monmouth is back to being the leader, so the MAAC is back to one bid
A-10: VCU is still leading and is right on the bubble as an at-large
AAC: Tulsa now has the lead here

Pac-12:
@Oregon St 85, USC 70 - critical for OSU to keep pace on the bubble. This dings USC a seed line maybe, but there's a lot of these games USC will have in the future
Utah 80, @Washington 75 (OT) - UW had a luxury of being listed in brackets as a conference leader, but it's gone now and they're probably 10th in the Pac-12 pecking order

Big 12:
@Iowa 83, Purdue 71 - Iowa is really close to the 1 line right now

Big 12:
Oklahoma 82, @Baylor 72 - a quality road win for OU, and this does matter when it comes to the 1 line now
@Kansas 76, Texas 67
West Virginia 80, @Texas Tech 76 - WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL PUTTING TEXAS TECH IN THEIR BRACKETS STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT
Iowa St 73, @TCU 60
@Kansas St 89, Oklahoma St 73

Pac-12:@California 74, Arizona 73 - Arizona is pretty clearly behind Oregon and USC now, not sure what others are seeing. This also keeps Cal a little bit ahead of the bubble
@Oregon 86, UCLA 72 - while this doesn't hurt UCLA, they're starting to compile some losses in quantity...will put pressure on them for the next month or so to win all the must-win games
Colorado 75, @Washington St 70
@Stanford 75, Arizona St 73 - and ASU is probably done

Big East:
@Xavier 84, Seton Hall 76
@Creighton 72, Butler 64 - Creighton is kind of becoming an annoyance - 5-2 in conference. They're creeping up on the back end of the bubble. Butler isn't there yet, but 2-5 in conference is untenable

B1G:
@Michigan St 74, Maryland 65 - MSU finally stops the bleeding; I have them settling on the 4 line. Maryland, this doesn't hurt them too badly, unless you want a 1 seed, in which case it kinda really does hurt
@Indiana 89, Northwestern 57 - NU can't lose games like this and hang on to the back end of the bubble
Michigan 81, @Nebraska 68
Illinois 76, @Minnesota 71 (OT)

Saturday, January 23, 2016

@George Washington 62, Rhode Island 58 - hold serve
@Wright St 73, Valparaiso 62 - oh no. Well, let's look at this. WSU is probably Horizon #2, so this was the toughest game of the conference season for Valpo. Losing 1 game in conference play isn't bad at all, so this is Valpo's mulligan

notables:
Stony Brook > Albany and have established as a clear #1 in A-East
NIU won again in the MAC and inexplicably has the lead
Iona > St Peter's, so that bracket intrusion by Pete yesterday was short-lived

Friday, January 22, 2016

AQ shenanigans:
West Coast: St Mary's takes the outright lead and should occupy that spot for awhile over Gonzaga
A-10: VCU still leads while being on the edge of the bubble
Pac-12: Washington's still there
Summit: South Dakota St probably isn't on the bubble, and is trailing IPFW still
MAAC: St Peter's to the lead here, and Monmouth back on the at-large board
AAC: Central Florida is now your leader. Oy vey
Sun Belt: UALR has the spot over UTA for now

procedural bumps:
St Mary's from the 11 line to the 10 line
UCLA from the 10 line to the 11 line *these moves accomodate UCLA having to play in the First Four and St Mary's not

Pac-12:
Arizona 71, @Stanford 57 - Stanford is slowly starting to approach the bottom part of the bubble race. Home against ASU coming up might be mandatory
@Oregon 89, USC 81 - expected result; I think the Pac-12 pecking order is Oregon/Arizona/USC for the time being, but it'll change
@California 75, Arizona St 70 - the Pac-12 race is an 11-team race, but Arizona St is about to lose the draft, so to speak
Utah 92, @Washington St 71

catastrophic loss of the day:
@Manhattan 78, Monmouth 71 - Monmouth had a mulligan or two left....and used one up here. Not much margin of error left. I'm nervous, because their 6-2 MAAC record extrapolates to 15-5 and 24-8 overall...I don't like their chances at 24-8

CAAWatch!: JMU and UNC-W take out bottom-feeders. W&M > Elon. Those 3 winners are on 5-2. Hofstra joins them by beating Northeastern. The team with the best overall resume, Northeastern, is now 4-3 and 5th place.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Big 12:
@Oklahoma St 86, Kansas 67 - Kansas is off the 1 line. Remember, everyone, their overall profile is not as strong as it has been in previous years. A clear loss in a situation like this is punishable via a seed line. As for Oklahoma St, they still have a lot of work to do to, but this at least gets them back on the radar for the time being

Big East:
Georgetown 81, @Xavier 72 - speaking of falling off the 1 line, you just have to hold at home in these situations if you're Xavier. There's no other way to put it. Georgetown is another team that was off the bubble and now is within shouting distance, but they need more than this
@Providence 71, Butler 68 - Butler is a clear #4 and Provi is a clear #3 in this conference. Solvent

B1G:
@Maryland 62, Northwestern 56 (OT) - a golden chance goes begging for NU. They're going to have to get one or two like this somewhere down the road to have a chance
@Indiana 103, Illinois 69

ACC:
@Virginia 69, Clemson 62 - this doesn't hurt Clemson one bit; three signature wins in a row are enough if - IF - they follow it through with road wins over teams they're supposed to beat. Virginia ain't one of them
NC State 78, @Pittsburgh 61 - an absolutely pathetic loss by Pitt that will be worth multiple seed lines

SEC:
@Texas A&M 71, LSU 57 - this doesn't really hurt LSU since this is the toughest SEC game on the board and they have other wins, but it just reduces margin of error elsewhere
South Carolina 77, @Ole Miss 74 - this really hurts Ole Miss who needs computer profile help; and USC solidifies their position a bit
@Florida 81, Mississippi St 78
@Auburn 83, Alabama 77 - Bama doesn't have a half-bad profile but can't stop hurting themselves

Monday, January 18, 2016

I've written about this a few times, but this is going to be a legitimate problem for the NCAA: balance.

In the top 16, I have 4 Big 12 schools, 4 ACC schools, and 4 B1G schools. By rule, for each conference, the top 4 teams in the top 16 overall must be in different regions. You can see the bracketing problem here. In addition, I have only one west coast school (Oregon) in the top 16. It is simply impossible to bracket these teams fairly as a result. You have to following the 4 from 1 in 4 regions rule above all else, and this means the brackets will be unequal.

I added up the overall seed of the top 4 teams in each region below:
East 29
Midwest 33
South 36
West 38

If you need context for these numbers, the east would be historically difficult and the west would be historically easy. However, every attempt I made to fix the inequality in each region ended up violating the 4 from 1 in 4 rule I mentioned above. This is as balanced as it can get without massively screwing over a conference.

In addition, individual teams get screwed: Xavier, West Virginia, Purdue, and Duke in the west, and Oregon doesn't even get to play in the west. And there's more on the sub-regional level. The entire 4 line is filled with teams forced to go to Denver or Spokane. It's a mess, and the NCAA will have to face one of two realities: either ignore geography and piss off fans in order to maintain fairness in the seedings, or ignore overall seedings and create a heavily biased bracket in order to make as many fans as possible happy.

And this is all assuming the play-in games stay on the 11 line. If they drop to the 12 line, that's a massive problem in itself.

AQ shenanigans:
West Coast: St Mary's has the autobid, not Gonzaga
Sun Belt: UALR has the autobid over UT-Arlington
Pac-12: Washington still has the autobid for now
MAAC: Monmouth has taken the lead and the MAAC is back to 1 bid
A-10: VCU has the autobid now

Big East:
Villanova 55, @Georgetown 50
Xavier 74, @Marquette 66 - a couple of home teams with golden signature win chances by the boards
Seton Hall 81, @Providence 72 - Provi is now clearly a step behind the top 2 in this conference, but on the other hand, SHU is a solid #5
@Butler 78, St John's 58

SEC:
@Auburn 75, Kentucky 70 - oy, this conference
Texas A&M 79, @Georgia 45 - and A&M is going to have to run away with this conference to get a high seed
@South Carolina 81, Missouri 72
Tennessee 80, @Mississippi St 75
@Vanderbilt 71, Alabama 63
Florida 80, @Ole Miss 71 - a very good look for Florida, but not one for Ole Miss. There's a pretty nice top 3 forming (USC/A&M/UK) and maybe Florida as a #4, but the picture's getting blurry after that
@LSU 76, Arkansas 74 - the rally ain't dead yet

MWC:
San Diego St 56, @Boise St 53 - in the battle of the only 2 teams with a sniff of the bubble, the worse team wins on the road. Good job good effort, Mountain West

notables:
CAA: Northeastern won...top of the conference is still crowded. JMU beats Hofstra on the road
Summit: IPFW beats Omaha on the road. And the opening is squandered for South Dakota St as NDSU beats them. IPFW and Omaha joint lead
Sun Belt: Georgia St lost at home, so they're slowly clearing the stage for the other two, at least
MWC: elsewhere, Wyoming beats UNM on the road, Utah St beats Colorado St on the road, and who knows what's going on here
SoCon: Chattanooga beats ETSU
CUSA: LaTech lost yet again, UAB wins and is the clear favorite

@Dayton 77, George Washington 70 - a golden chance to get an at-large elixir by the boards for GW....Dayton in very, very good shape
Monmouth 110, @Iona 102 - an important signature win for Monmouth, the toughest conference game on paper is safely navigated past

Akron lost on the road to Toledo, the MAC is starting to become a bit of a messEvansville beats Illinois St on the road, still isn't relevant

Friday, January 15, 2016

Pac-12:
@Arizona 99, Washington 67
@Arizona St 84, Washington St 73
Oregon 77, @Utah 59 - if I was forced to guess, the top tier of the Pac-12 is now Arizona/Oregon/USC in some order, with Utah a solid 4th and everyone in a jumbled mess behind it
@Stanford 77, California 71

ACC:
@Louisville 59, Pittsburgh 41 - no biggie for Pitt, good stabilizing win for UL that establishes themselves at the bottom end of the UNC/Duke/UVa/Miami tier

elsewhere:
Chattanooga wins in the SoCon
CAAWatch: Northeastern lost on the road to JMU (making that at-large hail mary scenario more hail maryish). W&M and Hofstra are now on point at 4-1
CUSA: LaTech lost again, and UAB might be the only legit team left here
Summit: South Dakota St beats IPFW at home (not a trivial win)

ACC:
@Clemson 68, Duke 63 - well, there you have it, Clemson is a legit bubble team now. And for the ACC, they're giving up a lot of ground collectively on the S-Curve
@Syracuse 62, Boston College 40
@Virginia Tech 93, Wake Forest 91 - I know it's a road game, but darnit Wake, you were just beginning to sniff the bubble
@Notre Dame 72, Georgia Tech 64 - neither team in exactly great shape here
Florida St 85, @North Carolina St 78 - and it's tough to see either team mattering

B1G:
@Purdue 74, Penn St 57
@Ohio St 94, Rutgers 68

SEC:
@Alabama 73, South Carolina 50 - that should stop the USC bandwagon from careening out of control. Still a bubble team, I think
@Georgia 81, Tennessee 72
@LSU 90, Ole Miss 81 - well give LSU credit, they're maintaining their pulse now. Bigger news is trying to figure out what to do with Ole Miss

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Big 12:
@West Virginia 74, Kansas 63 - WVU with a signature win, and nearing the lockbox. Kansas does not have the profile they typically have, and are less secure on the 1 line than you think
@Texas 94, Iowa St 81 (OT) - ISU is losing the draft of the top 3 lines right now
@Kansas St 83, Texas Tech 70 - hey, all you idiots putting TTU in your bracket: Stop.

MAC: Akron loses at CMU, NIU wins to stay undefeated
MVC: SIU and Evansville win and have gaudy records, but aren't bubble-worthy yet
MWC: the mid-table of this conference is a mess. New Mexico loses at UNLV

Monday, January 11, 2016

One dynamic emerging: the lack of western teams at the top. Why is this important?

Say you're #8 overall on the S-Curve. As the worst 2 seed, you get last choice of regional, which is almost guaranteed to be the west. Look at UNC having to go west. Meanwhile, Miami at #9 overall (1st 3 seed), they get to stay east.

Also this matters for the top conferences. Look at Iowa and Iowa St. They are the 3rd best teams in their conferences, but they have to go west at the top 2 teams are blocking their preferred regionals. In the end, a team that finishes 3rd in their conference is a real threat to be forced out west because of conference conflicts.

Current AQ shenanigans, based on current standings:
Houston has the AAC bid, not UConn or Cincy
Wofford has the SoCon bid, not Chattanooga
Omaha has the Summit bid, not South Dakota St
St Bonaventure has the A-10 bid
Washington has the Pac-12 bid
Iona has the MAAC bid, not Monmouth

Big East:Villanova 60, @Butler 55 - Villanova sending statements everywhere. They're in contention for the 1 line. Are they ahead of Xavier now? Xavier are computer profile monsters. Right now, Nova is a healthy 2. As for Butler....slipping back in the pack towards the 6 line.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

A-10:
@LaSalle 61, Dayton 57 - ugly loss, LaSalle is not good. This is not the spot where you want to use the road mulligan
St Bonaventure 88, @UMass 77 - Bonaventure...not quite on the at-large radar yet, but in play
@Davidson 81, George Mason 75
@George Washington 91, Duquesne 64

AAC:
@UConn 81, Memphis 78 - the computer numbers are ugly but all UConn can do is win at this point
@Temple 78, East Carolina 60

Big 12:
Kansas 69, @Texas Tech 59 - ok, everyone needs to cool it on TTU, okay?
@Oklahoma 86, Kansas St 76
Baylor 94, @Iowa St 89 - Baylor was the one team in the conference in computer profile trouble, and this solves a lot. A big story for ISU here as well, because they've lost the lead draft of Kansas/Oklahoma and that could be worth a couple seeding lines
@West Virginia 77, Oklahoma St 60
@TCU 58, Texas 57 - when you're a bubble team, you can't spend road games like this. Need to win the gimmies on the road

Pac-12:
@USC 103, Arizona 101 (4OT) - Zona is just throwing away seed lines right now
Washington 99, @Washington St 95 (OT)
@UCLA 81, Arizona St 74
@Oregon St 77, California 71 - it's becoming more and more difficult to analyze the middle of this conference. Everyone seems the same, profile wise. And Arizona is slipping to the middle here. Any predictions on this conference are moot, because it's all going to change by March

Friday, January 8, 2016

Preface to the bracket: starting today, I project the current leader in the conference standings as the autobid winner for the conference. This leads to the following oddities in the bracket:
-Houston has the AAC autobid, not UConn or Cincy
-Green Bay has the Horizon autobid, not Valpo
-St Mary's has the WCC autobid, not Gonzaga
-UTA has the Sun Belt autobid instead of UALR
-Iona has the MAAC autobid, not Monmouth
-Omaha has the Summit autobid, not South Dakota St
-also, San Diego St has the MWC autobid as of now

This is an unusual time for the update, but wanted to fix a few things and introduce the conference standing rule for the rest of the year. No bracket today.

Pac-12:
@UCLA 87, Arizona 84 - a signature win for UCLA, and an even bigger mess in the Pac-12. Maybe we just put 8 of their teams on the 8-9 lines and call it a day
@USC 75, Arizona St 65 - at this point, home wins are basically service holds for the home team and no real harm for the road team (unless there's a bunch of losses like that)

AAC:@SMU 59, Cincinnati 57 - probably too much to ask of Cincy on the road, but the American is another step closer to 1-bid armageddon

SEC:
@Ole Miss 74, Alabama 66 - bubble battle

WCC:St Mary's 73, @Loyola Marymount 48
@BYU 97, Santa Clara 61

CAA:Charleston > Hofstra
Northeastern and William & Mary handle the bottomfeeders
Elon > James Madison
Towson > UNCW
Northeastern is the only undefeated CAA team left at 3-0

Summit:
@IUPUI 74, South Dakota St 67 - the at-large chances were slim, but alive. This might be a dagger. Plus NDSU lost at home as well to Omaha, so they might be the real threats now

CUSA: LaTech loses at home to ODU. Figures that well after ODU plays it way out of bubble conversation, they beat the league leaders on the road. MTSU beats UTEP at home...probably your 2nd and 3rd best CUSA teams...well maybe throw UAB in there, who also won. Bottom line is that CUSA is a mess where the bottom half is actively hurting the top half with their poorness, and no one can establish themselves as the favorite on the top half.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Now, as a preface, remember: teams get bids, not conferences. However, the strength of a conference can help support a bid (or hurt it). It's useful to see the conference RPI because it gives a quick snapshot of if conference play can generally help or hurt a team. Let's look at the standings and see if we can get ahead of some trends.

I've broken these down into tiers based on the raw values of the RPI, which I'll list.

Tier 1:
1) Big 12 .5991
2) Pac-12 .5913

These two have separated just a little bit from the other power conferences. The Big 12 has a ridiculous 4 teams currently inside the Top 10 RPI and 6 inside the top 25. This is a big help to Baylor. They have a pretty poor non-con SoS but will make it all up. Texas Tech is the other notable. They have a top 10 SoS right now despite their signature win probably being UALR or South Dakota St. They completely avoided sub-250 teams, and completely gamed the system. And now, conference play will support them.

The Pac-12 might only have one lock in Arizona, but there are a total of 9 teams with an RPI between 14 and 49 right now. Plus UCLA in the 70s. Bottom line is that with no bad teams in the conference, several will make the tournament. We just don't know who yet.

Tier 2:
3) Big East .5819
4) ACC .5802

They'll both get half their teams in the field of 68, give or take one.

Tier 3:
5) SEC .5676
6) B1G .5627

The big story is the B1G being this far down, essentially even with the SEC. Problems are that they have a few deadweights and a few relatively weak bubble teams. There will be enough quality wins available for the B1G to get a 5th and maybe a 6th team, but it's tough to envision anything more. The SEC is rallying back a bit, they've finally caught one of the conferences typically in the top 5.

Tier 4:
7) A-10 .5427

The usual spot for the A-10. They'll be in line with recent years.

Tier 5:
8) AAC .5254
9) CAA .5223

Problems for the AAC. Even though they're 8th, their raw numbers have them closer to 12th than 8th. Multiple bids will be an issue because they have exactly 1 Top 70 RPI team: SMU.

The CAA is the first outlier. Without a true bubble team, they have several teams that built good records against okay competition. This will result in a high seed for their champion, but I can't find an at-large resume to rally around at the moment.

Big problems for the MWC and MVC. They're not supposed to be slumming it down here. The threat of 1 bid is real for these conferences. The Summit is a big surprise, and I wish I could explain why. They have avoided having a truly awful team, but outside of South Dakota St there's not a lot of strength here. The Big West is here again thanks to some brutal SoSs, and the MAC is in line with recent years.

Even bigger problems for the WCC. Sun Belt has UTA and UALR; MAAC has Monmouth. Those are the 3 at-large resumes to look out for from the bottom half of these standings. Both conferences are down, but they're closer to 15th than 23rd. So both conferences will hurt those teams, but not more so than we're usually accustomed to.

The big lesson? Teams in conferences from 8th on back aren't really in great shape. Good news for the A-10 perhaps. The MWC, MVC, and WCC are having catastrophically bad seasons so far. And the AAC needs SMU to start providing quality wins to the rest of the conference.

If South Dakota St can dominate the Summit, they might have a shot. If someone dominates the CAA (which I highly doubt because there are several good teams), they'd have a shot also. UTA, UALR, and Monmouth more or less have to dominate to stay in favorable position.

Pac-12:
@Oregon 68, California 65 - no harm no foul to Cal for a close road loss
Stanford 78, @Oregon St 72 - road wins are one way to emerge from the absolute mess that is the middle of the conference...and home losses are one way to slip to the back of the pack

A-10:@Dayton 93, UMass 63
@St Louis 65, George Washington 62 - I have no idea what GW is doing, but this is a rather marginal loss
St Bonaventure 77, @George Mason 58
@Davidson 77, Duquesne 66

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Big East:Marquette 65, @Providence 64 - a catastrophic loss for Providence. 1 seeds don't lose this type of game. Marquette is back in the middle of the bubble talk, and the Big East can absolutely support a bid for a 6th team
Butler 77, @DePaul 72
@Creighton 79, Georgetown 66 - it's getting late early for GU's bubble chances

ACC:
Clemson 74, @Syracuse 73 (OT) - a really bad loss, and Syracuse is now on the brink

SEC:@LSU 85, Kentucky 67 - LSU has erased a lot of sins in the past week and have fought back to the bubble. Work left to do, still
South Carolina 81, @Auburn 69 - I kinda wish USC would lose real quick here so we can avoid that feeling that they're frauds
@Arkansas 90, Vanderbilt 85 (OT) - what's going on with Vandy? From tourney team to nowhere near the bubble, and fast

AAC:
Temple 55, @UConn 53 - a terrible, no good loss for UConn, who isn't the lock people think
@Tulsa 55, East Carolina 43
@Houston 63, Tulane 45 - well, Houston still has that gaudy record

A-10:
@Rhode Island 77, Richmond 65 - two teams just barely close enough to the bubble to matter for the time being
VCU 85, @St Joseph's 82 - a pretty bad loss for a St Joe's team who's been sneaking up on the bubble. Gotta hold in spots like these. VCU still has work to do, by the way

MW:Boise St 76, @Utah St 61 - well, if Boise can establish itself as top dog in the MW, they'll have a fighting chance at an at-large

Notables:Chattanooga over Mercer in the SoCon (probably not an at-large team, but building a reasonable profile
Akron wins at Buffalo, Kent wins at WMU in the MAC
non-con cupcake winners: Memphis

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Big 12:
@Kansas 109, Oklahoma 106 - largely unimportant on the grand scale; both are on the 1 line for now and pecking order will be determined by later games
West Virginia 95, @TCU 87 - road wins are never trivail

ACC:
@Virginia Tech 70, Virginia 68 - talk about a catastrophic loss, it's going to take a lot of good against the upper division to erase this one. This is the type of loss that costs someone the 1 line
North Carolina 106, @Florida St 90

1) Right now, the Spokane and Denver sites will take the 4 lowest protected seeds (all 4 seeds). There is truly an east coast bias in the brackets this year. No west-coast team has higher than a 4 seed. This means it's more critical than ever for the east coast teams contending for a top-3 seed to get as high as possible to avoid a cross-country trip.
2) The chain reaction to all this is that a lot of teams are going to have to take a long road trip. The 4-5-12-13 seeds are just going to have to travel a bunch, there's no way around it.
3) To further this thought, the play-in game winners...aren't traveling across the country. Those games get a bump to the 11 line in this bracket, and the committee will have to get creative if this situation stays as is.
4) The Pac-12 is an interesting conference right now. Highest seed is a 4 seed in Arizona, but they have 8 teams in this bracket. A lot of them are middling seeds, and a lot of them are traveling a bunch.

Big 12:
@Kansas 102, Baylor 74
@Oklahoma 87, Iowa St 83 - won't budge either team much when the home team held, but Oklahoma has the inside track on the 1 line over Kansas for the time being
West Virginia 87, @Kansas St 83 (2OT)
@Texas Tech 82, Texas 74 - not good, Texas
@Oklahoma St 69, TCU 48

notables:
Over in the CAA, JMU lost at home to Charleston in an early bellweather game for the conference. Northeastern and Hofstra win...They're high up on the CRPI, so we'll be paying more attention to the CAA than normal